Before Florida native Exene Cervenka reinvented herself in Los Angeles as a wild-eyed singer and punk-country-folk priestess with such bands as X, the Knitters and Auntie Christ, she first performed locally as an unknown poet at Beyond Baroque workshops in the late '70s. Tonight, she comes full circle with this spoken-word event, where she'll read her passionately confrontational and subversively romantic boho-steeped poetry, from such collections as Virtual Unreality and Adulterers Anonymous (a collaboration with Lydia Lunch), and also discuss her participation in the “Celestial Ash” art exhibit. Despite being recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Cervenka has a lot of things on her plate, with an upcoming solo album on Bloodshot Records and a summer tour with X. If anything, she's even more desperate than ever, so “get used to it.”

Sun., July 12, 3 p.m., 2009

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